We were almost back to our place when the squad car radio squawked.

“Unit eleven, over.”

Blake shot me a look. We were off duty, and on our way to grab a bite to clear our heads after what’d happened and how badly we’d let it go crashing down. And me? Well, I was going to get drunk as fuck, that’s for sure.

The radio squawked again, and I groaned.

“You wanna get that?” Blake scowled.

“Fine, fuck it.”

I clicked the switch over to two-way mode and cleared my throat. “Hey, what’s up, dispatch? Blake and I were just about to—”

“Code red!”

We both froze at the sound of our ranking sergeant’s voice. Sarge never called cars himself.

And then there was “code red.”

That was never a good sign.

“Code red for—?”

“For the op! The Plimpton case!”

Blake slammed on the breaks, yanking the car to the side of the road. “What,” he snarled.

“Surveillance just called it in a few seconds ago — we’re fucking blown on the Plimpton stakeout!”

“The fuck happened?” I said, my voice feeling like lead, a chilling feeling creeping through me. I didn’t know where Samantha had gone after she’d peeled out of the cul-de-sac, but she couldn’t have gone back to that asshole’s house, right?

“Plimpton is fucking gone, guys,” Sarge barked over the radio. “Santiago himself was there at the house, and they’re gone.”

I exhaled slowly.

There was no way she was there.

“Any idea where they—”

“They grabbed the fiancée too, guys.”

The world went dark. For a second, it felt like something was shattering inside my chest. Slowly, I turned to Blake, seeing him looking white, his hands clenching the wheel so hard I was sure he’d snap it off.

“They shook the surveillance tail, too,” Sarge growled. “Look, we need you to come in. The FBI’s coming down, and we’re going to figure this shit out. We’re moving on this, we just need to find them.

Them.

I knew Blake had the same thought as me right then. There was no them to worry about.

Only her.

We didn’t give a shit about Tim and Miguel, and the rest of them in that moment. The only thing in the fucking world that mattered in that moment was finding her.

The only thing that mattered was getting our Samantha back.

“See you when you get here, over and out.”

Sarge cut the call, and the car went silent except the sound of our breathing.

Slowly, we turned to look at each other.

“He took her.”

Blake nodded, his face grim. “Which means something’s up. Maybe she saw something, or heard something. Fuck, I mean Santiago himself was there?”

I nodded. “Look, if we head to the station and wait for the fucking FBI, and we’ll never get her. And you know that.”

Blake swore, his fist crashing into the steering wheel before we both went silent for another full minute.

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right?”

I turned to my friend, frowning. “I’m trying to not think about what might be happening to her, actually—”

“No,” Blake shook his head. “Not that. I’m thinking we’re the two most driven guys I know, we’re military trained, and we’ve got a trunk full of shotguns and body armor.”

Slowly, a grim, hard smile cracked across my face, and I nodded.

“In that case, then fuck yes, I’m thinking the same thing as you.”

Blake nodded grimly. “Let’s do this.”

“Where are we thinking?”

Blake’s jaw tightened as he glared out the windshield. “If Miguel dodged a tail, it means he knows there’s a tail, which means he knows they’re being watched. He won’t go to any obvious place, like his own place, or restaurant.”

The restaurant was one of Miguel Santiago’s fronts — Blake and I had staked it out many times. Every week, it seemed like we were adding new places of Miguel’s that intel had just discovered to stake out. The restaurant, the condo he kept by the beach, the place in LA, the sports bar over on Tanner Street, his niece’s—

I froze.

His niece’s house.

Today had been the first day of surveillance on the place, since intel had just figured out that it might be a point of interest.

Slowly, I turned to Blake.

“Dude.”

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Blake,” I punched him in the arm. That got his attention.

“What?” he growled.

“The niece’s place.”

His eyes went wide. “Holy shit.”

“A hundred bucks says no one back at the station even has it on their radar. We just got the intel on that this morning.”

I didn’t have to say another word before my friend suddenly cranked on the engine, slammed the car into drive, and peeled out in a U-turn.

“It’s a shot,” he said icily as we shot down the beach road.

“It’s a shot I’m sure as shit willing to take,” I growled back.

“Me too, brother.”

“We’re getting her back, man.”

Blake’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Fuck yes we are.”

Because no one was going to take our Samantha and get away with it. And she was ours — Blake knew it, I knew it, and I knew she knew it.

She belonged to us, and we were going to go take back what was ours.